Almaty!

Hello from Almaty. Warning -- long post! :-) Also, I can't figure out the funky fonts! UGH!

So sorry that we have not been in touch sooner, but as if often the case, we are experiencing some technical difficulties. I think I finally got my Blackbery up and running, but not so yet for my Droid. Despite being warned numerous times by the guy at the Verizon store to call the global help line in advance of leaving the country, I of course forgot to do so, and now I am patching together the means to get it to work. Oh well, best laid plans. I am now leaning out of our hotel room door, aiming the laptop toward the lobby, and hoping to hang onto this wireless signal long enough to post this entry!

So, let me start by saying that we are all great, and Max is a total trooper. We traveled out on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and if that was supposed to be the busiest travel day of the year, someone forgot to tell the people who use the Cincinnati airport. Heather got us there with plenty of time to spare, and we were through the security line in less than 5 minutes. We could have been through in 30 seconds if we weren’t a family of traveling vagabonds with the maximum amount of carry-ons permitted by law.

Max enjoying the necklace he made at school for Thanksgiving, while catching up on Olivia episodes on the ITouch.

The TSA folks were fantastic – no pat-downs in site, and only Glenn went through the full-body scan. One of the TSA guys gave Max a TSA badge sticker that Max wore proudly for hours and hours, until it bit the dust as part of VomitPalooza.

We have known for awhile that Max can suffer from motion sickness, and I very briliantly grabbed the box of Dramamine out of the car as we headed to the airport. The problem is that I opened the box later and it was EMPTY! So, we were traveling without our best friends, the motion sickness pills. Poor Max did great until the wheels hit the ground in Amsterdam, and then he let loose. It was disgusting, especially since I couldn’t get to the bags quick enough. You’ve never seen a business-class compartment empty as fast as ours did once those doors opened in Amsterdam. We stripped Max down right then and there and his traveling clothes are likely in some landfill outside of Amsterdam by now.

Speaking of business class, we feel so blessed to have been able to upgrade using the frequent flyer miles I’ve accumulated over the last few years.

That also gave us entry into the nice KLM club lounge in Amsterdam, where we waited out our 6 hour layover. Glenn and I took turns dozing off while the other entertained Max, who was going strong after just 2 hours of sleep on the long overnight flight to Amsterdam. By the time we boarded our flight for Almaty, Max was downright delirious, and was asleep before we even departed.

He managed to get a good four hours of sleep in, and because I was delirious myself, I forgot to put him into a Pull-Up. So, you guessed it – VomitPalooza on the Amsterdam flight, and PeePalooza on the Almaty flight. We may never be permitted into a business class cabin again. If you heard about a little boy in the Immigration line in Almaty who was in his pajamas and tennis shoes, that would be Max. I packed two sets of clothes (soon to be a minimum of five sets of clothes) for him in our carry-on luggage, so we were down to PJs by the time we made it to Almaty.

We cleared immigration easily in Almaty, even though Max entered on his Kaz passport (he is a dual citizen) and Glenn and I entered on US passports. I expected at least some questioning, but there was nothing out-of-the-ordinary other than a stern hand-smack on the counter from the immigration agent when I didn’t lift Max up quickly enough to stare into the camera for his entry picture – and now that I think about it, that’s probably not out-of-the-ordinary. We picked up our hundreds of pounds of luggage, headed out to the entry area, and easily found our driver through the sea of taxi drivers asking for our business. We were tucked into our nice room at the Hotel Kazzol by 6:30 AM Friday morning Almaty time, and were enjoying our breakfast in the hotel restaurant just about an hour later.

We spent most of Friday lounging around, napping a bit, and exploring the area just around the hotel to grab basics for the room (milk, water and “Coke Light” are must-haves).

We had dinner at the hotel, and then Max and I headed to the indoor pool. I had noted that the Hotel Kazzol had a pool, so I packed our suits “just in case.” I used that pool as the means to keep Max’s crankiness in check most of the day. :-) The pool was heated to about 70 degrees—I have no idea what the temp is in a typical heated pool, but I was freezing the entire time. For the millionth time, I was reminded that we will do anything for our kids. ( I was also reminded of that when my cupped hands were the first line of defense for catching the puke on the plane – YUCK!) At one end of the relatively small pool, a water aerobics class was in progress. The instructor stood on the edge and shouted instructions to 8 or so older women in the pool. She played awesome American dance music, so we had great background music for our swim. We also shared the pool with about 5 or 6 men – maybe Russians or Kazaks. Several tried to talk to me, and I would nod and mutter the basics of “not speaking Russian” (man, I wish I had brushed up more on my Russian before this trip – I was so much better when we traveled for Max). At one point, the men got together and appeared to vote that one of them needed to approach me – so he did, and in his best Russlish accompanied by exaggerated hand-motions, I believe he told me that Max should be wearing a life jacket. I couldn’t figure out how to explain that we had packed four huge suitcases as it was and simply could not fit in a life jacket, but instead I just smiled, said “Spaseeba” (thank you), and moved on.

After shivering our way through the pool, Max continued his swim in the hotel room tub. Such a happy boy if he's in water!

This trip is so very different than our first trip to find our Max in so many ways, but here are the key differences that I haven’t been able to shake:

It’s no surprise to many of you that it was really hard for me to leave home. We are still mourning a death in our family, and it was very hard to leave Salina and Max’s precious cousins Zoe and Austin during their first holiday season ever without their father. If you’re the praying type, please continue to keep them in your prayers. Life may never be the same for that sweet family. Salina wants nothing more than for us to go meet her new nephew, but it continues to be very hard to be so far away from her.

Planning to travel for a month with an almost 4-year-old has been so completely different for me than planning to travel as a couple. Max is such fun-loving, connected little boy who loves school and loves his 9 little classmates who he sees every single day. I have been very focused (Glenn might call it obsessed) on ensuring that Max would have the best possible time during this trip, and that we would have plenty to keep him busy if we can’t get out and about due to inclement weather. That meant thinking about both his 4-year-old birthday party (for which I plan to round up strangers on the street – ha!) and Christmas, and a bunch of time in between. I have been and continue to be worried that the trip will zap the enthusiasm right out of him, or that he’ll freak out at the baby house. He’s asked to go home about 4 times, but distraction has worked every time. I haven’t had to dip into the “bag of surprises” just yet, and I see that as a huge accomplishment as we end Day 1. :-)

To be perfectly honest, the above two points, coupled with bouts of "what-the-hell-are-we-doing-we-have-such-a-perfect-life-already" freak-outs caused me to go into a weird funk for the week before we left – a combination of denial and procrastination. I didn’t start packing until Tuesday night, although there were piles of "stuff" scattered all over the house. On Wednesday morning, I decided that we were taking whatever I felt like taking – to hell with weight limits. I posted about that on Facebook, and received some really encouraging words, which helped me push through. (Seriously, if you were one of those people that said “way to pick your battles, Karen”, that is exactly what I needed to keep pushing through my funk). We have four huge suitcases, two carry-on wheel bags, 3 back-packs, and a stroller. It’s hard to believe there is anything left at home!

I am very happy that we planned to hang out in Almaty first for two days before we head to Ust. We’re comfortable in both cities, and Almaty is just a tad bit “easier” for us. We hope for good weather on Saturday so that we can really explore. The only mistake I made for the planned Almaty layover was that I gave absolutely no thought to the fact that we have those four suitcases jam-packed with stuff, and we’ve had to dig into every single one of them to get by for the next two days. I suppose in hind-sight I could have better planned an “Almaty” suitcase. Whatev. :-)

So I will sign out on this first night in Almaty, as Glenn watches old episodes of Saturday Night Live on one laptop, Max watches Cars on the portable DVD player, and I type away on the second laptop. As I said, we brought A LOT of stuff.

If my calculations are correct, we will meet MLB in just about exactly 2 ½ days. The countdown is on!

Thank you for following along, and for most of all, your support and encouragement!!